HEALTH
Research finds stillbirth can be inherited from father, father’s relatives
SALT LAKE CITY — University of Utah researchers were part of a large study concluding that the tendency for stillbirth can be inherited and that the tendency is passed down through male members of a family.
Further, the study found that while the risk can come from both the mother or the father’s male relatives, the odds of a couple losing a baby to stillbirth are greater if the condition is passed down from the father’s family.
The study was published in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. The authors used information from the Utah Population Database, which according to the study “offers a population-based genealogical resource linked with state fetal death and birth records.”
The study examined 9,404 cases of stillbirth, along with 18,808 live births (as controls) occurring between 1978 and 2019. The researchers say they found 390 families with “an excess number of stillbirths over multiple generations.”
“We were able to evaluate multigenerational trends in fetal death as well as maternal and paternal lineages to increase our ability to detect a familial aggregation of stillbirth,” said Tsegaselassie Workalemahu, Ph.D., a faculty member in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at U of U Health.
“Not many studies have examined inherited genetic risk for stillbirth because of a lack of data. The Utah Population Database (UPDB) allows for a more rigorous evaluation than has been possible in the past.”
More research needed on non-white women, families
The researchers were careful to note that the population within the Utah Population Database is genetically similar to the U.S. population of northern European descent, and “may not be generalizable to the general U.S. population.”
They said future studies are needed to determine trends among non-northern European ethnicities.
Stillbirth is more common among Black women reports the CDC, as well as women who smoke during pregnancy, women who are 35 years of age or older, and women who have had a previous pregnancy loss.
The CDC reports that stillbirth affects 1 in 175 births each year and that each year 21,000 babies are stillborn in the United States.
The risk increases with gestational hypertension, preeclampsia, or diabetes.
Other reading:
Today’s Top Stories
KSL EXCLUSIVE: “It’s been a punch to the gut,” Woods Cross mom of boy…
Murray doctor charged with sexual exploitation of a minor
Full interlodge in effect for Alta and Snowbird ski area
The Salt Lake Temple renovation has a new completion date
Gwyneth Paltrow ski collision trial in Utah enters third day
Another Utah snowstorm has us asking, what is a snow squall?- Woods Cross man charged for allegedly secretly recording others in bathroom
Salt Lake carjacking suspect dead, investigation continues
Mother tells of her escape from addiction and being homeless
Spring running late, another snowy morning commute is predicted
